


Boarded Up

by lamevolcano



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: AU, Boarding School AU, DEREK'S QUEER- STILES IS QUEER- EVERYONE IS QUEER, Friendship, High School AU, Human AU, Humor, Humour, M/M, Romance, Well probably not everyone, cool cool enjoy the gay angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-16
Updated: 2015-07-16
Packaged: 2018-04-09 15:59:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4355270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lamevolcano/pseuds/lamevolcano
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Stiles had never been good at judging his own feelings. But one thing he was sure of: He was not excited about finishing his high school career at a boarding school. In California."</p><p> </p><p>[Loosely based on Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Boarded Up

 

 Stiles had never been good at judging his own feelings. But one thing he was sure of: He was not excited about finishing his high school career at a boarding school. In California. Hell, The only pair of shorts he owned were at least 3 years old and well, pre-growth spurt. While he was pretty sure his new school wasn’t going to be chocked full of valley girls and guys whose vocabularies consisted of the words gnarly, surf, and dude, the idea of leaving his entire past behind wasn’t too appealing. (even if this past consisted of one best friend and a town full of people who only knew him as his dad’s son.)

 It is 6pm on the Sunday before the semester starts, and Stiles is lying on his new bed, the lingering scent of new bedsheets and new beginnings in the air. He and his dad had spent the day moving Stiles into his new dorm, and after quite the emotional goodbye, Mr. Stilinski had left. While Stiles wasn’t exactly happy with the new environment, he was thankful that he and everyone else in senior class got their own dorms- He appreciated the privacy. After a day of travelling and heavy lifting, Stiles was not opposed to the idea of a hot shower. Getting up off of the mattress, Stiles reaches for the doorknob to the bathroom and turns it. and turns it. and turns it. The door is stuck. Sighing, reaching for his room-key hooked on the keyholder by the doorway to go find some maintenance help, Stiles is just about to leave when he hears the click of a doorknob behind him. Turning, he finds the bathroom door slightly ajar.

  _Haunted bathrooms. How exciting._

 Stiles, slightly exasperated at this point, grabs ahold of the door knob, opens the door wide and takes a step into the bathroom… slamming right into something. That something being a boy. and- well, a cute boy. A really cute boy. A really cute boy who is at least 6 feet tall with a very intimidating facial expression- and judging by the strong scent of cologne in the air and the boy’s clothing choices, he was getting ready to go out somewhere.

 “Shit, uh- i’m sorry” Stiles stammers out after a few seconds of silence, taking a step back into his dorm, suddenly very aware of his own messy hair and sweat soaked clothes.

 Face softening a bit, the boy replies,

“Oh, that’s okay. Did they not tell you that bathrooms are shared between two dorms?”

  _Crap. I do remember somebody mentioning that._

 “Oh- Yeah. Must have slipped my mind- sorry about that man. I’ll let you finish getting ready for uh, whatever you’re getting ready for” Stiles finishes awkwardly, scratching at the back of his neck.

 “That’s okay, I’m pretty much done anyway. Knock yourself out.” Derek replies, stepping out into of the door leading to his own dorm, holding the door ajar with his hand wrapped around the doorknob.  

 “I guess I’ll see you at some point tomorrow?…I’m Derek, by the way. I guess i’m right next door if you need help with anything.” He says.

 Stiles blinks at the surprising kindness- even if it probably lacks sincerity, and splutters out an affirmative, his name and a thanks, watching Derek close the door behind him and hearing the sound of a lock from the outside of the bathroom. Locking the same door from the inside, Stiles strips off his sweaty clothes and gets in the shower, Thankful for the warmth it provides.

 About a half hour later, a clean and sleepwear-wearing Stiles is wasting time on the internet, (after all, there’s not much else for him to do) scrolling through his facebook feed when he decides to give in to his intrigue and looks up Derek. He doesn’t know his last name, but he figures Derek has probably entered his location into his profile. There can’t be that many Derek’s from California, right?

 The first three results that come up foreshadow the rest of them. Search result number one, is Derek Smith. His profile picture is of a ginger cat, and his completely public profile tells Stiles that he is a very big My Little Pony fan, and shares many, many posts from the Brony association of America. Search result number two is Derek Davis. His profile picture is dark and Stiles can’t enlarge it and thinks he might be on the right track, but his hope is diminished when he notices Derek Davis’ saved nickname. (Double D.) He promptly exits the profile. Result number three, Derek Brown, has no profile picture, and his posts consist of very, very badly written poetry- each post signed off with D.B at the end. By the tenth profile he looks through, he has concluded one thing.- Dereks, in general, are either creepy or disturbing. or both. He is about to give up, but because he is so determined and well- _interested_ in Derek (despite the numerous worrying Californian Dereks he finds), he follows his stalker instinct and looks up the school’s facebook page. He lets out a groan of frustration when he realizes he can’t actually look at the people who have liked the page, and begins scrolling down the school’s timeline and is about to give up on his creepy, stalker-y whims once again, when he comes across a picture of three students, who all look around freshmen age. Stiles immediately recognizes the boy in the middle as Derek, with slightly more chub on his cheeks and a modest grin. None of the three are looking directly at the camera, and their body language signals that they’re a group of friends.

 The caption on the right-hand side of the picture reads:

 

**Three of our freshmen students today at orientation. BH welcomes our new freshmen student body to the school and are excited to see what they can bring to the community.**

 

Tagged below the caption are three names: Erica Reyes, Isaac Lahey and Derek Hale.

 With a feeling of accomplishment and excitement, Stiles clicks on the link to Derek’s profile only to find that it’s mostly on private, but there are a few posts on display. One is from a couple of tagged photos that look like they’re from a party, but it’s too dark to actually see much. Another is a link to a change.org petition to stop animal cruelty against… dolphins? Stiles scrolls down to the next post and feels his heart sink.

  
**Derek Hale**

 In a relationship with **Jennifer Blake**

 

Despite their short meeting, Stiles was disappointed at the loss of possibility. He was attractive, he seemed kind while also slightly mysterious, and his cologne smelled really, really good. With feelings of disappointment and embarrassment, Stiles closes the browser and shuts his laptop lid, depositing his laptop on the desk next to his bed. Although he was disappointed, the fact that somebody had bothered to be nice to him, gave him hope that maybe the next day wouldn’t be so bad.

 

 _____________________________________________________________________

  
The next morning, Stiles realizes that the hope he had had for that day had been misguided. Very misguided. He wasn’t exactly sure how the air conditioning worked, - He had kept it on way, way too high, and as it got progressively colder as the night went on- He had woken up with a disorientating headache and a warm forehead. Groaning audibly, he shut off the alarm blaring from his phone, cursing himself for his stupidity. Heading towards the door in his pajamas and t-shirt, Stiles headed down the deserted corridor towards the nurse’s office - luckily on his floor and not too far away. After having his ears and temperature checked, The nurse concludes that Stiles has a high fever, and sends an email to the office telling them that he will not be attending classes that day.

 “Hey, look on the bright side, eh? At least you won’t have to go through all of those boring orientation seminars.” The nurse says, a kind look on her face.

  _Right, and miss out on actually getting to know people and getting to know my way around this hazardous school._

 Stiles sighs.

 “Yeah. I guess you’re right.” He says, with a small smile at the lady.

 Despite being quite the extrovert, Stiles was way too awkward and embarrassed to go down to the cafeteria to get any of his meals without knowing anyone and looking like a complete mess- so he snacks on his never ending supply of cereal bars and drinks whatever he had in his mini-fridge for breakfast and lunch. At some point while Stiles is lying down, wallowing in his sickness, he hears the unmistakable noise of conversation and laughter nearby- signalling that school is over for the day and everyone is heading back to their dorms.

 About two hours after the noise has died down, Stiles hears a knock on his door.

 Groaning into his pillow, he rolls out of bed and sluggishly walks to the door, opening it, expecting it to be the nurse coming to check up on him.

What he expects to be a short, middle aged lady with graying hair is actually a tall, teenage boy with very nice cheekbones- Seeing Stiles look even more badly put together than usual, in his pajamas and an old t-shirt. Great.

 While Stiles attempts to subtly fix his hair Derek says, “Hey. So I heard you aren’t feeling too great?”

 “Oh. Yeah, I was dumb and left the AirCon on all night last night”

 “huh. Follow me then.” Derek says, shaking his head.

 Stiles starts to follow him then realises he has no idea where they’re going.

 “Um... where are we going?”

 “Oh right. I help the nurse out sometimes. That’s how i found out you were sick. We’re going to the nurse’s office to check if you’re any better.”

 “Oh, Okay.”

 The two of them walk into the nurse’s office, and Stiles notes that the nurse is missing.

 This means that Derek probably did this regularly, and god, how much more endearing could this guy get? He helps out sick students on a regular basis? - the guy probably did it voluntarily, too.

 “Okay, sit down.” Derek says, gesturing at the short bed by the side of the room.

 Stiles hesitates for a second, then goes to sit down.

 Derek goes to rummage through a desk drawer propped up against the wall.

 “So, don’t you have to actually be, um, qualified to take charge of the nurse’s…duties?”

 Although he can’t see Derek’s face, Stiles can tell that he lets out a laugh at the question by how his head bobs.

 “Well, I don’t do anything too tricky - I just help with the small things. checking temperatures, giving out Ice-packs- that kind of stuff.” Derek says turning back around to face Stiles, a thermometer in his right hand.

 “Ah. That makes sense.” Stiles nods.

 Derek sits in a chair now, and rolls it over to the area in front of Stiles.

 “Would it make you feel better if I told you I take AP Bio? Anyway, I’m gonna need you to actually open your mouth so I can check your temperature” Derek says.

 Stiles can feel a slight blush on his skin, it doesn’t help that he’s usually so pale that he’s only a few shades short of transparent. He’s close enough to Derek that he can feel the heat radiating off of him. This doesn’t help with the blush.

 Stiles opens his mouth and then lifts his tongue as Derek instructs him. Derek lets go of the thermometer when it’s safely sandwiched between the bottom of Stiles’ mouth and his tongue, but doesn’t move away from his seat. After what feels like an hour and is probably only a minute or so- the thermometer beeps and Derek takes it from Stiles’ mouth.

 “Ninety-nine point two, Practically gone. Still a slight fever though. You need to take care of yourself or it’ll probably worsen. What’ve you eaten today? Have you been drinking enough water?” Derek asks, after reading the tiny digits on the side of the thermometer.

 “Oh. I mean, I had like, 13 cereal bars and uh….. 2 cans of coke” Stiles says sheepishly.

 Derek sighs audibly.

 “Im guessing you’re planning on eating a couple more for dinner?”

 “I mean, It’s not like I can go to the dining hall…i’m- i’m contagious.” Stiles replies, even though his health was the last reason he was avoiding going down to get food.

 “Right. Well, you’re eating a proper dinner. I’ll bring up a meal for you. Any requests? Are you a vegetarian?”

  _This guy._

 “Oh, thanks. and no, I’ll eat just about anything.” Stiles replies, and then cringes at the unintended innuendo.

 “Alright. Let me just pick up something from my dorm. We can eat in there too.”

 Stiles hadn’t realized that this was an invitation to actually eat dinner with the guy, and now he was feeling all sickly warm inside. Did this mean that Derek was actually interested in talking to Stiles? Or was he just being polite?

  _He has a goddamn girlfriend. Give it a rest, Stiles._

 When they get to the dorm, Stiles awkwardly hovers outside, unsure of whether he should follow Derek into his dorm or wait until he gets back with the food.

 “You can come inside, y’know.” Derek calls from the inside of his dorm, answering to Stiles’ confusion.

 Stiles walks in, and is immediately surrounded by the embodiment of Derek’s personality. The walls lack posters, there’s no mess. Anywhere. It makes it hard to believe that this is the room of a teenage boy. The only things that make the room personal are the string of framed photos which adorn his dresser. There’s one with a young Derek, maybe six or seven, with a young looking woman with a few of Derek’s features- presumably his mom. Next to that are two small picture frames with the school logo printed across the right hand corner in gold lettering. In the first he looks the same age that he looked in that picture Stiles found on facebook, on the next he looks similar to how he looks now, if not slightly less brooding.

 “Oh, my mum makes me keep those up there. Something about giving a personality to the room. She likes those school photos a lot too. I think she’s just proud that- yeah. That one’s from back when I was a freshman, the second is from junior year” Derek rambles, seeing Stiles looking at the pictures.

 “No sophomore picture?” Stiles says

 Derek’s mouth forms a tight lipped smile. “Nah. I was having a bad face day. Faked sick so i missed pictures.”

 “You have bad face days?” Stiles blurts out before he can stop himself- immediately embarrassed, thankful that he’s facing the other direction so that Derek can’t see his facial expression as he mentally slaps himself.

 “Uh, I should probably go get that food now. You can just… wait here.” Derek says after clearing his throat.

 Stiles cringes at the moment of awkward tension, but appreciates that his comment was ignored.

“Oh, yeah-okay.” Stiles says before Derek hastily exits the room.

Trying to get his cheeks to regain his natural colour, (or lack thereof) Stiles continues to look around, but there really isn’t much to look at. Looking back at the dresser, Stiles notices a photo frame he missed. It’s a picture of five people. Stiles recognizes Derek and the other two from the facebook picture. Apart from them, there’s a tall guy wearing a grey and white baseball shirt, and a girl with brown hair, presumably Derek’s girlfriend- judging by his arm around her shoulders. Stiles stares aimlessly around the room for a while, annoyed that his phone is dead in his dorm somewhere. It’s not long before the sound of a key in a lock is heard, and the dorm door opens and in walks Derek, carrying a hastily packaged- looking meal in each hand.

 “It’s a chicken sub. Plenty of vegetables too.” Derek says, handing one out to Stiles.

 “Great. I sure do love me some… vegetables.” Stiles says taking the sub, taking a cautious seat on the desk chair.

 “I’m sure you do.” Derek says.

 After a few seconds of the sound of plastic wrapping being removed, Derek continues,

“So, what brings you to BH?”

 “Oh. The food. Definitely the food.” Stiles says, after a generous bite into his sandwich. “Well. And my dad had to go out of the country for a work thing. It was easier to drop me off here. My aunt and uncle don’t live too far away, so it’s convenient or whatever.” He continues.

 “Ah. That’s nice. Where were you before this?”

 “North Dakota.” Stiles says, blankly. “What about you? Where’re you from?”

 “Around.” Derek says.

 “No need to be so specific, man.”

 Chuckling, “It’s a long story. Another day.” Derek says.

 The small talk goes on until they finish eating. Stiles doesn’t feel like getting up just yet, and he hasn’t observed any signs from Derek that say that he thinks Stiles is intruding. So they start talking about school. They find that they share 2 classes- English and Physics. Stiles didn’t miss much from the day. It was mostly introductions, although no one was actually interested in anybody else. Derek talks briefly about his friends. He names them - Erica, Isaac, Boyd. Jessica, his girlfriend, goes to a day-school closeby. Derek brushes around the topic of his girlfriend after this, and they move on to talk about wolves. Well, wolves and other animals. They conclude that they have one common interest so far- animals. Before they know it, it’s 10:30pm and Stiles gets Derek to show him how the AirCon works.

 “You see this green button?”

“Yes.”

“That’s for turning it on.”

“Well yeah.”

“This red one is for off.”

“Yes, I know this, i’m just confused about-”

“And these numbers? Up here? That’s the temperature- you control that with these arrows.”

“Oh! Temperature. so setting it higher would make it… less cold. I didn’t stop to think it was temperature.”

“Well… what did you think it was a measure of?”

“Uh.. I don’t know- like a level of coldness i guess?”

Derek laughs.

“If that’ll be all, I’m going to head off. Need some sleep for the first proper day back. I’ll see you at breakfast, Stiles.”

 Stiles is unsure what to make of this. Does he mean see you at breakfast like see you from across the dining hall briefly before we go to our separate tables? See you sitting with me at a table with all of my friends? See you if we do end up seeing each other but it’s not really a promise that I’ll say hi? Shaking his head, Stiles bids Derek goodnight, switches off the lights, puts his phone on charge, and goes to bed.

 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Hey!  
> Congrats on making it to the end of the first chapter of this messy idea of a fic. It does get better, I just had to deal with all the annoying parts that come with first chapters and didn't get to fit in as much substance as I would've liked.
> 
> Thanks for reading!  
> -A


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